d her lovely daughter.

'My dear Faith!' cried he with tender compassion; but the corporal
rapped him upon the shoulder, and whispered to him, 'silence, if you
have any regard for your neck. Without the duke's permission no word
must be uttered here.'

A deep and awful silence now prevailed in the ante-chamber, broken only
by some plaintive tone which occasionally reached them through the
double doors which separated the two rooms. An angry voice suddenly
cried within, 'let the brute be hanged!'--'That was the duke,'
whispered one of the soldiers to another. The doors opened, and the
delinquent was again led through the ante-chamber by his companion.
'God be merciful to me!' stammered he, as he staggered onward and
disappeared.

Again a deep silence, again the doors of the audience-room opened, and
the counsellor cried out, 'the Dane, with the two gentlewomen!'

'Forward!' commanded each of the corporals, and with a firm step Dorn
walked into the hall, supporting the almost fainting females.

A tall haggard man, with a dreadful sternness in his yellow face and
small twinkling eyes, frightfully expressive of anxiety, a magnificent
plumed hat upon his short red head, a black velvet Spanish jacket
decked with the stars and chains of various orders, an ermine-trimmed,
dark violet-colored velvet mantle upon his shoulders, was standing by
his gilded armchair before a table, at which three counsellors and a
Jesuit were seated. Six barons and the same number of knights, stood in
files by the wall in respectful silence, that the behests of the
all-powerful noble might be followed by instant execution, as the deed
follows the will, or thunder the lightning. Behind the arm-chair stood
the well known captain of the life guards, who met the entering group
with a smile of Satanic triumph.

With the majesty of a prince of the lower world, the duke advanced to
Dorn, looked at him with his little piercing eyes as though he would
interrogate his soul, and in a gruff repulsive tone asked him, 'Danish
captain?'

'By virtue of this commission,' quietly answered Dorn, handing the
document to him.

The duke glanced through it, gave it back to him, and said, 'a prisoner
of war, then!'

'When count Mannsfeld was driven through Silesia by you,' answered
Dorn, 'I was left in Oels severely wounded. I there found a charitable
merchant who had my wounds healed and afterwards took me with him to
Schweidnitz. Tired of the trade of war, I h